4 lettuce varieties that are safe to eat after CDC recommends tossing romaine

If salad is a part of your Thanksgiving feast menu, make sure there’s no romaine lettuce in the mix. The CDC is warning about its possible connection to several E. coli cases.

The good news is there are a few lettuce varieties you’re still safe to eat.

The CDC is recommending that everyone avoid eating romaine lettuce until they get to the bottom of an investigation into 32 E. coli infections across the nation which occurred in October. None of those cases were in Texas, but in each case the person had eaten romaine lettuce before they got sick.

“Predominantly it would be a diarrheal illness, and generally it happens within three or four days after consumption,” said Dr. Stacey Rose at Baylor College of Medicine.

If you have Romaine in the house, the CDC says throw it out, and wash the area in the fridge where it was located.

That doesn’t mean you can’t have lettuce. There’s still iceberg lettuce, green leaf lettuce, red leaf lettuce and butterhead lettuce, which are still safe to eat, according to the CDC.

“We won’t be using any romaine lettuce this year,” Jasmine Holmes while shopping for groceries the day before Thanksgiving. “We’re gonna stick with our collard greens, mustard greens.”

Some grocery shoppers said they’re just glad to see the other lettuce get some attention.

“I thought to myself, you know, iceberg lettuce has just been sitting here, back in the background, going, ‘You always neglected me because you said I had no nutritional value, but I never gave you [e. coli.]’” said Amy Songer. “‘I’ll take you back at any moment. Just forget romaine.”’

The CDC says of the 32 illnesses believed to be related to romaine lettuce, 13 people were hospitalized and one of those patients developed a more severe illness which was a form of kidney failure. If you think you may have symptoms of E. coli, see your healthcare provider.